


Who You Gonna Call?

by lemonicee



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Flirty Neil Josten, M/M, Poltergeists, andrew rings a bell, ghostbuster!andrew minyard, neil josten is fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonicee/pseuds/lemonicee
Summary: Neil has a poltergeist.This is fine.It’s never hurt anyone. Well, not seriously. And sure, it’s annoying, but Neil has dealt with worse.It’sfine.Until Jean brings his new boyfriend over and suddenly everyone has “concerns.”
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 18
Kudos: 259
Collections: AFTG Exchange Winter 2020





	Who You Gonna Call?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [solelystarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/solelystarling/gifts).



> This is for @solelystarling! I tried to fit in as many of your prompts as possible. I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope you like it!

Neil has a poltergeist. 

This is fine. 

It’s never hurt anyone. Well, not seriously. And sure, it’s annoying, but Neil has dealt with worse. 

It’s _fine_. 

Until Jean brings his new boyfriend over and suddenly everyone has “concerns.” 

“Neil, Kevin, this is Jeremy,” Jean says, practically purring as he bats his eyes at the tall blond guy standing beside him. 

Kevin’s whole face lights up. “I recognize you,” he says, “you play for the Dragonhearts.” He turns to Neil and gestures at Jeremy. “Remember? He got that goal past Walker last season.” 

Jeremy clears his throat. “I play for _Dragonheart._ Singular. No ‘the’. It’s more badass without it.” 

“We play for the Foxes, with Jean,” Neil says. Jean doesn’t always have the best taste in men, but this one could work out. Maybe Kevin can talk him into switching teams. The Foxes have won the city’s recreational Exy championship for the last three years straight, so it shouldn’t be too hard of a sell. 

Jeremy nods. “That’s right. You guys --” 

He gets cut off when a cup of water appears out of nowhere and dumps itself over Neil’s head. The water is lukewarm, at least, so Neil is only left with his hair dripping wet, not dripping wet and freezing cold. 

Neil sighs. 

Kevin rolls his eyes. 

Jean looks pained. 

Jeremy says, “What the fuck?” 

“It’s his poltergeist,” Kevin says, nodding towards Neil. “It’ll leave you alone.” 

Jeremy blinks at Kevin, then at Neil, then at Jean, who says, “My bedroom is this way.” 

He tugs at Jeremy’s hand and Jeremy follows, bewildered. 

When the door shuts behind them, Kevin looks at Neil, whose shirt is slowly absorbing all the water from his hair. “You have to do something about that fucking ghost.” 

“”Poltergeist,” Neil corrects. “It’s fine. I was going to shower anyway.” 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

Two days later, Neil is on his hands and knees in the kitchen, angling a spatula under the fridge, when there’s a knock on the door. He ignores it and flattens himself to the ground, trying to wedge his arm just a little bit deeper. 

He barely registers theflurry of footsteps behind him, but Jean’s voice breaks through Neil’s concentration when he says, in French, _“What the fuck are you doing?”_

Neil drags his arm out from under the fridge and flops over on his back with a frustrated sigh. When he opens his eyes, he’s surprised to see a small crowd gathered above him. Kevin and Jean are there, but so are Jeremy and Renee Walker, the Foxes goalie. A tall blonde girl he’s never seen before is peering over Renee’s shoulder. 

“It took my phone,” Neil says. “It’s under the fridge now.” 

“The ghost took your phone?” the blonde girl says. She doesn’t sound skeptical, so Neil already likes her more than most people he meets. 

“Poltergeist,” Neil says. “Who are you?” 

“Allison.” The girl steps around Renee and holds her hand down to Neil. He reaches up to meet her in the most bizarre handshake he’s ever been a part of, but instead she gets a good grip on his hand and pulls him to his feet. “Your friends interrupted our date night to ask for help, so I came along.” 

“You were eating ice cream on Renee’s couch,” Kevin says dryly. “You don’t have to sound so put out about it.” 

“I don’t care about that,” Allison shoots back. “I was looking forward to what we would be eating _after_ the ice cream.” 

“Thanks babe,” Renee says. “That’s totally information my teammates needed to know.” 

Allison tugs at a lock of Renee’s rose gold hair and bats her eyelashes. “Just giving them something to be jealous of.” 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Kevin says in the same tone he uses at practice when he doesn’t think people arepaying enough attention to Exy (or him). “They’re here because Walker knows someone who might be able to help with your problem.” 

“Why is this suddenly a problem?” Neil asks. “And why does it have to be sorted out, in person, _tonight?_ This thing has been here for like six months and _now_ you care? 

“Oh, _I_ don’t care,” Kevin shrugs, “but apparently Knox cares, so now Jean cares, and if I let them handle this alone, they’ll probably burn the whole building down with a smudge stick.” 

Neil frowns at Kevin. “Do you think burning the apartment down would get rid of it?” He hasn’t committed arson in almost a decade, but it seems like it would be an easy enough skill to pick up again. 

“We’re not burning the apartment down,” Kevin says. “Besides, I thought the poltergeist was ‘fine’?” 

Neil crosses his arms in front of his chest. “It _is_ fine. A lot of things are fine. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t also be fine if some of those things were gone.” 

Before he can start listing Kevin’s personality traits that are _fine_ but wouldn’t be _missed_ , there’s a high pitched grating sound behind them and Neil spins around to see Jeremy single-handedly tipping the fridge halfway over. 

“Problem solved,” Jeremy announces, kicking the phone towards Jean and lowering the fridge back into place. “Well, sort of. I can’t fix the rest of your issues,” he says with a grin. 

“You’re a genius,” Jean says, practically purring as he bends over to grab the phone off the floor and toss it to Neil. “Come with me, I’ll show you how grateful Neil is.” He winks in Neil’s direction and threads his arm through Jeremy’s, molding himself to Jeremy’s side. 

Neil would very much like to be excluded from that particular narrative. It does, however, end in two people leaving the tiny kitchen and he figures that evens it out. 

With a little more space to breathe, Neil takes a step backwards and turns to Allison and Renee. “How do you think you can solve my problem?” 

The second the last word leaves his mouth, the silverware drawer flies open at Neil’s elbow and everything inside is unceremoniously dumped on the floor with an unreasonably loud clatter. When Neil looks down, the flatware at his feet spells out “F U C K Y O U.” 

“Great,” Neil sighs. “Now it wants to _communicate_.” 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

It turns out that Renee has a friend from college who just happens to also be some sort of ghost hunter or exorcist or...whatever. Neither Renee nor Allison were very specific. Now it’s almost a week later and not only does Neil have no idea what to expect when Renee’s friend eventually shows up, but the poltergeist has been a sulky bitch ever since that afternoon in the kitchen. 

After the silverware ordeal, it vanished for a full 24 hours before showing up to scatter every item in Neil’s closet around the apartment while everyone was gone. Then it started pulling the covers off Neil’s bed every time he tried to sleep. Finally, he gave up and slept without any blankets. Everything Neil has needed for the last few days has been relocated. His shoes, his wallet and keys, his phone. The final straw came the night before, when it had taken Neil’s Exy racquet and they’d all three been late to practice trying to find it. 

The strain must have shown on their faces, or maybe it was just in the one throbbing vein above Kevin’s eye. Whatever the reason, before they leave practice that night Renee promises that her friend will be over in the morning. 

The doorbell rings and Kevin jumps up to answer it. When he comes back, he’s trailed by a guy with caramel skin and curly hair, and two short, identical blond dudes. Like, shorter than Neil, short, which almost never happens. 

The first guy introduces himself as Nicky and the other two as his cousins, Andrew and Aaron. He doesn’t indicate which name goes with which twin, but Neil doesn’t care. He just wants them to do whatever they’re going to do and leave. If they take the poltergeist with them, even better. 

Kevin has turned on the charm though, and is offering them beverages and snacks. They refuse, which is really for the best. Neil has no idea what Kevin planned to do if they said yes. Pour them a healthy glass of vodka and a bowl of cereal? It’s not like they keep a cheese plate on hand for guests. 

“It’s attached to you,” one of the twins says. Neil looks up, ready to protest, but any objections die on his lips when he locks eyes with the twin standing closest to him. Hazel eyes pierce straight into his soul and there’s no point in lying, so he nods. 

“Aaron?” Nicky says. 

The twin on his other side answers. “Andrew’s right.” 

“I’ll handle it,” Andrew says. His tone is flat, bored, but he still hasn’t broken eye contact. It’s not exactly friendly. Neil isn’t sure if Andrew is here to help him or hurt him. Renee had indicated the former, but Andrew’s general body language leans more towards the latter. 

“Um,” Nicky says, presumably because he’s getting the same weird vibes as Neil is here. 

“Great,” Aaron says, “let’s go.” 

Andrew finally looks away, and Neil feels like a string has been cut. He collapses into the chair behind him and watches as Andrew has a low, tense conversation with Nicky and Aaron. 

Finally, Nicky turns to Kevin and Neil and says, “Aaron and I will be downstairs, call if you need us.” 

He hands a business card to Kevin, then follows Aaron out the door. As soon as the door is shut, Andrew turns a glare on Kevin. “You, too. You’re polluting the atmosphere.” 

“I live here,” Kevin says, “and I’m not leaving you alone with Neil. What if you murder him? Haven’t you ever heard of stranger danger?” 

“Why would I do that?” Andrew’s indifferent tone has not changed. “Renee knows me. I would go to jail immediately.” 

“It’s fine,” Neil says. 

The look Kevin cuts him in response is a solid mix of disbelief and annoyance, but he says “Don’t scream for help,” then stomps off to his bedroom and slams the door. 

Andrew sits down on the edge of the coffee table across from Neil and fixes a steady gaze on Neil’s face. “So what did you do to summon this thing?” 

“I didn’t summon it,” Neil says, firmly. He thinks he would remember that. “I’m not an idiot.” 

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” 

“It just showed up six months ago,” Neil explains. “Out of nowhere. Like, four months after we moved in.” 

“Then you definitely summoned it,” Andrew says, glaring at Neil like he called up a poltergeist just to fuck with him. “Did you bring home anything weird?” 

“Just Kevin,” Neil says, and grins at his own joke. 

Andrew’s scowl deepens. “Did anyone give you something that might have been cursed?” 

“No,” Neil says. “But Kevin and I _did_ find a weird old book under the floorboards. We lit a few candles and read it to each other. I think it was in Latin?” He tilts his head at Andrew, questioning, and blinks in his best impression of confused innocence. 

Andrew sighs. Deeply. “Did you get rid of anything original to the apartment?” 

Neil widens his eyes. “Just an old creepy painting- do you think that was a problem?” Then he remembers what else he threw away, and makes a face. 

“What?” Andrew drawls. “Did you throw away an old box of haunted dolls, too?” 

“Well, not exactly,” Neil winces. “It was full of weird dusty clothing wrapped around little wooden animal figures. There might have been symbols carved into them? It was hard to tell, they were really old.” 

“Mystery solved,” Andrew says. “You’re an idiot.” 

Neil sighs. “Well, yes. But in my defense--” 

“No,” Andrew cuts him off. “You have none.” 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

Andrew asks Neil a million questions about the poltergeist and how it manifests. Neil doesn’t even remember half of them; he’s too busy finding the gold in Andrew’s eyes. The poltergeist is completely silent during the whole ordeal. 

Before he leaves, Andrew puts his number into Neil’s phone and makes him promise to film any activity he witnesses. When Andrew’s gone, Neil goes to his bedroom and finds every item of clothing he owns stuffed under the bed. 

“You’re doing this to yourself,” he tells the air as he kneels down and starts to drag his jeans out from under the bed. “If you’d left me alone, maybe you could stay.” 

In response, his door slams shut hard enough to shake the whole building. 

Everything is back in the closet and dresser before it occurs to him that he should have taken a picture to show Andrew. Instead, he texts, _“It took all my clothes. Forgot to take pic.”_

_“You had one job,”_ is the response that comes through seconds later. 

Neil grins at his phone, feeling something warm curl in his chest. _“That’s what you get for leaving it to the amateur.”_

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

A week - and dozens of texts - later, Andrew is back at Neil’s apartment with a duffel bag full of what Neil assumes are ghostbusting supplies. This includes salt, chalk, more candles than Neil has ever seen in one place, and weirdly enough, a set of bells. 

“Some of them hate the noise,” Andrew says with a shrug. 

That sounds no less insane than anything else happening here, so Neil doesn’t question it. Instead, he watches Andrew make chalk lines and salt the windows and arrange candles according to a very complicated looking diagram he has pulled up on his phone. 

He makes Neil stand in the middle of a chalk circle and chants his way through the most apathetic Latin that Neil has ever heard. As a last touch, he picks up two bells and rings them three times each. The enthusiasm in his movements is not at all synced with the pained expression on his face. 

When he’s done, there’s a gust of wind and all the candles flicker out at once. Then it’s just still. Impossibly still. After a long moment, Andrew lets out a breath and says, “It’s gone.” 

And that’s that. 

Andrew starts packing up the candles and chalk and Neil watches, torn. The poltergeist is allegedly gone and he should be celebrating. Instead, he wants to throw himself across the door and refuse to let Andrew leave. Neil hadn’t even wanted him there in the first place. The only reason they even met is because Jean’s boyfriend was weirded out by Neil’s personal haunting. Now he’s desperately trying to think of a reason to keep Andrew in his apartment. This feeling is new and unfamiliar and Neil isn’t sure what to do about it. 

Finally, as Andrew is zipping the duffle bag closed, Neil says, “So, um, do you have to be somewhere?” At Andrew’s raised eyebrow, he continues, “Because if you wanted to hang out, we could watch an Exy game or something. Kevin and Jean won’t be back for hours.” 

Andrew stares at him for a long beat. “Exy is gross,” he finally says. “We can watch a movie.” 

An hour later, they’re tucked under a blanket on Neil’s couch, a pizza box on the table in front of them. Neil looks at Andrew’s profile in the blue glow of the television and feels an unfamiliar flutter in his stomach. 

He scoots a little closer, until they’re pressed together at the shoulder and hips. When Andrew doesn’t move away, Neil settles deeper into the couch and lets it happen. After a moment, Andrew shifts beside him, lining the heat of his body up against Neil’s side. The movie is still playing, but Neil is so distracted by Andrew’s warmth that he can’t focus on the plot. 

Before Andrew leaves, he leans in the doorway and hooks his thumb in Neil’s front pocket. “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks, his voice low and intimate in the space between them. 

A thrill runs up Neil’s spine and he has to fight back the smile threatening to overtake his entire face. “I don’t know,” he says, biting his lip and meeting Andrew’s eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?” 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @willow_bird and @rainbowObsidian for fixing my grammar and helping me make Neil the best bad luck charm he can possibly be. And than you to @likearecord for being my cheerleader and my best friend and posting this for me so I didn't have to do it myself. 
> 
> And thank you to the organizers for all of their hard work!


End file.
